“Polemos Is the Father of All Things”
Interview conducted by Alexandra Laignel-Lavastine and translated by Alexis Cornel
André Glucksmann:
It may surprise you to hear me say that I do not find the notion of “just war” very pertinent. If a just war is a war that I consider just, this does not mean very much; it’s nothing but a personal opinion. On the other hand, the notion as it is elaborated by Cicero or by Saint Augustine is deeply ontological. It derives from the idea that there is order in the world that can be disturbed by an act of aggression. In this Roman and Christian model, a just war is one that either restores peace to the world (Cicero) or that reestablishes the order of Providence (Augustine). But here lies the mystery: How do you account for the popularity of this notion in a world in which we do not believe in order as understood by the Romans or as understood in Christianity? This popularity shows that we continue to understand war within a horizon of peace that we take to be more fundamental: order is primary, and war is secondary. This model implies the right to make war (jus ad bellum) in order to restore peace.
In the Greek paradigm, on the other hand, it is the state of war that has priority. We are always in bello—in a state of conflict—and war is justified insofar as it aims to moderate violence or to avoid the end of the world. Thus, the central problem is that of jus in bello (justice in wartime). To sum up: either we understand war within a horizon of peace, or we understand peace within a horizon of war. These two paradigms imply very different codes of conduct. In our day, I would say that our ways of justifying war must derive essentially from jus in bello and not from jus ad bellum; this is because we are immersed in situations in which war is always possible and in which the effort to master this possibility is open to question. In brief, just as the idea of a just war strikes me as anachronistic, so the idea of justice within war (the rules of which were codified in the Geneva Convention or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) is urgently relevant.
Monique Canto-Sperber:
In the Greek paradigm, on the other hand, it is the state of war that has priority. We are always in bello—in a state of conflict—and war is justified insofar as it aims to moderate violence or to avoid the end of the world. Thus, the central problem is that of jus in bello (justice in wartime). To sum up: either we understand war within a horizon of peace, or we understand peace within a horizon of war. These two paradigms imply very different codes of conduct. In our day, I would say that our ways of justifying war must derive essentially from jus in bello and not from jus ad bellum; this is because we are immersed in situations in which war is always possible and in which the effort to master this possibility is open to question. In brief, just as the idea of a just war strikes me as anachronistic, so the idea of justice within war (the rules of which were codified in the Geneva Convention or the Universal Declaration of Human Rights) is urgently relevant.
Monique Canto-Sperber:
For me, the notion of just war remains relevant because it testifies to our double heritage of reflection on the ethics of violence. In the ancient world, war was regarded as a quasi-natural consequence of interactions among cities and among human beings.
It is only in early Christianity, which tended to recommend abstinence from all violence, that we first see even the possibility of a “just war.” This teaching, in which war and the good are closely linked, would be significantly modified by Grotius, a contemporary of Descartes. Grotius detaches the recourse to war from the pursuit of the good and gives “just war” a more procedural definition. The following question then comes to the fore: To what degree, within a given juridical order, are there legitimate reasons to make war, and by what means? Henceforth, states are held responsible, and criteria must be fixed. These criteria relate both to legitimate reasons to enter into war (jus ad bellum: the right to self-defense, the duty to put an end to a massacre) and to acceptable means of making war (jus in bello). We today are heirs of both these visions (Augustine’s and Grotius’s), whether we acknowledge it or not. According to the first, war is legitimate if its goal is to eradicate an evil and to establish a good. Humanitarian interventions, or wars that are supposed to promote freedom and democracy, take their inspiration from this principle. Their tendency is to identify the justice of war with a general moral claim. According to the second vision, the justice of a war cannot be conceived without reference to a complex network of reasons, justifications, rules, and limits. This view holds justice within warfare (jus in bello) to be the central question. Both these conceptions are opposed to pacifism, according to which, strictly speaking, any use of violence is intrinsically evil.
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Read more: www.city-journal.org
It is only in early Christianity, which tended to recommend abstinence from all violence, that we first see even the possibility of a “just war.” This teaching, in which war and the good are closely linked, would be significantly modified by Grotius, a contemporary of Descartes. Grotius detaches the recourse to war from the pursuit of the good and gives “just war” a more procedural definition. The following question then comes to the fore: To what degree, within a given juridical order, are there legitimate reasons to make war, and by what means? Henceforth, states are held responsible, and criteria must be fixed. These criteria relate both to legitimate reasons to enter into war (jus ad bellum: the right to self-defense, the duty to put an end to a massacre) and to acceptable means of making war (jus in bello). We today are heirs of both these visions (Augustine’s and Grotius’s), whether we acknowledge it or not. According to the first, war is legitimate if its goal is to eradicate an evil and to establish a good. Humanitarian interventions, or wars that are supposed to promote freedom and democracy, take their inspiration from this principle. Their tendency is to identify the justice of war with a general moral claim. According to the second vision, the justice of a war cannot be conceived without reference to a complex network of reasons, justifications, rules, and limits. This view holds justice within warfare (jus in bello) to be the central question. Both these conceptions are opposed to pacifism, according to which, strictly speaking, any use of violence is intrinsically evil.
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Read more: www.city-journal.org
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